Leiko Ikemura: Biography, Facts, Books & Artworks

Biography

Born in 1951 in Tsu, Mie-Ken, Japan, Leiko Ikemura is a contemporary artist residing and working between Berlin and Cologne, Germany. She is occupied with painting, drawing, sculpture, and since 1981 photography.

In 1972 Leiko Ikemura decided to leave Japan and lived in several European cities in Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. She developed an internationally lauded artistic practice, marked by a mysterious aura residing in every single object she creates. Recurring genres are mystical landscapes and obscure portraits, in which the artist balances both abstraction and figuration in an expressive and characteristic manner.

Issues of gender, war, and religion are interrogated on paper, canvas, or with patinated bronze. She combines Far-Eastern influences — think of an animistic apprehension of the world — with visual language and an artistic approach shaped by European culture.

Her works always consist of a certain ambiguity or impalpability. The mysterious character of her works is the result of her ongoing interest in Japanese mythology, depicting different states of transformation. SimiLikedius’ Metamorphosis, there is this notion of an in-between state with her subjects, in which they float between nature, the animal, or the human form.

Human bodies seem to oscillate with the landscape. Rocks show anthropomorphic suggestions or traits, or trees grow organically on or out of a human figure. The totality of her oeuvre across various media is an equal dialogue in which she creates spaces of memory and imagination, merging wondrous worlds and making them her own.

Portrait of Leiko Ikemura. Photo: Erina Izawa.

Career Facts

Leiko Ikemura is an established artist and one of the most important painters of her generation. Her works feature in renowned public collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the City of Antwerp, the Hall Art Foundation in Reading (US), La Maison Rouge in Paris, the Middelheimmuseum in Antwerp, the Museum for Contemporary Art Antwerp, the Museum Het Domein in Sittard, Mu.ZEE Art Museum by the Sea for Belgian Art in Ostend, the S.M.A.K. Municipal Museum for Contemporary Art in Ghent, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (MUMOK) in Vienna, the Lentons Kunstmuseum in Linz, the Kunsthaus Zürich, or the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf.

Leiko Ikemura Artworks